Let’s be honest you and I, for a moment here. Many of you do not know it; but this service is relatively new. We’re still working on making it look, sound, and feel as we want to. We want to attract people to come here, and not just for the sake of having people here. I want it to be something that changes lives. That’s why I am a minister, a preacher, a priest…whatever you want to call me. I don’t do it for my own sake or to bring myself glory, but because it brings me joy and pleasure and happiness to see the lives of people changed for the better by the Power of God and through following His Son. We want to provide a worshipful experience not only here in this service, but also knowledge that you can take home with you and that can help transform your internal and external worlds for the better. And most importantly, I want us to glorify and worship God in this service.

John Wesley believed that after we became Christians, that God’s work in our lives was not over. He used a term called “Sanctifying Grace,” to refer to the actions of God in our lives to progressively make us more and more like Him in how we feel, how we act, how we see the world, and how we exist in this fallen world. He believed, and I agree with him, that Our Father through the Holy Spirit continues to mold us and make us into true sons and daughters of God. Wesley believed that worshipping God correctly intensifies this sanctifying grace. It changes us inside and out, whether we know it or not.

However, the problem with all of this is that we are still broken people. We are a people who are still prideful, who still have addictions, who still are depressed, anxious, angry, frustrated, deliberately sinful and totally unwilling to face that sin. Frankly, we just don’t get. We think, often times, that we understand how to worship God and how to live our lives; but if we did understand these things, what would be the point in Christianity other than avoiding Hell. You’ve got your get out of hell free card, move on…go dig a well in Africa, give nets to kids in Central America to help prevent malaria from mosquito bites. However, what if you are wrong?

The whole point of the parables are that we generally do not What if you don’t understand how to worship God? What if how you have been doing church, whether you are a visitor, a member, or a regular attendee of our congregation, what if it was wrong the way that you were doing church? What if how we are doing church –and by doing church I mean worshipping God –is wrong? If I could show you that you were wrong, based on the Bible, would you be willing to change and do things right? If not, tell me now, I will take over the 11 o’clock or 8:30 service for David and we’ll let you do what you want; because frankly I’m not interested in worshipping God in a way that entertains your or makes you think that Jesus is your boyfriend. I am interested in being in the intense presence of God as much as God will allow me to be.

This week I have been pondering these thoughts in my time alone, and I have come to feel that God is leading me and us as a church to look at how we worship and how we spend time with Him. Therefore I will be preaching on worship and how we worship for the next little while. This means that we will be studying the book of the Bible that stands as probably the most challenging and difficult book for us to understand today in our modern context. We will be looking at the book of Leviticus.

The first word in Leviticus, in Hebrew, is Wayyiqarah. Now, years later the Greeks got a hold of it, and in the Greek, the corresponding word is Leuitikon. Later, Latin speaking Christians got a hold of the book and named it Liber Leviticus, which means “The book Leviticus.” Now what is real interesting, and very telling about what the book is about, is that Leviticus, Leuitikon, and Wayyiqarah all mean the same thing – “God summoned…”

The Book of Leviticus focuses on a great many things, but it begins with the powerful and very important phrase, “God summoned…”

God summoned the Israelites out of Egypt. We all know the story of the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery and oppression in Egypt into the promise land at the leadership of Moses. The Israelites had been living in the far northern part of Egypt, just above Cairo for hundreds of years. There they lived in peace with Egyptians and served as their northern most defense against invading forces. However, just as God promised Abraham, the Hebrew slash Israelite people continued to grow and multiply. So large did their numbers get that their friends the Egyptians began to grow fearful of them. People began to be afraid that the Israelites would try to overthrow Egypt. So, in an attempt to stop this, the Egyptians enslaved the Hebrew/Israelite people and made them do all of their manual labor.

Now over time the Israelites were assimilated into the Egyptian culture. They dressed like them, talked like them, sometimes intermarried with them, and worst of all they began to import the Egyptian styles of worship into their religion. The Israelites cried out to God for help and deliverance from captivity, and God heard their cries. From the desert he came to a man named Moses, who had once lived in Egypt and eventually fled the land. He told Moses that he had heard the cry of his people and that he was going to use him to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. As the story goes, Egypt was pounded by nine horrifying plagues that progressive became worse and worse; but was not until God struck down the first born of every home who did not put lamb’s blood on the door ceil that the Israelites were let go. And Moses, lead by God, guided the entire nation of Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness. There they camped at the base of the mountain of God…the very same mountain that Yahweh, the Hebrew God, the Father of Jesus Christ made himself known to Moses.

It is important to understand that the Israelites that approached Mount Sinai and that camped their initially were totally different than those who left Mount Sinai for the promise land. The Bible tells us that the Israel who came to the mountain of God came as a disorganized, rag tag, ravenous, blood thirsty, undisciplined group of thugs and slaves. However, the Israel that left Sinai was totally and radically altered. They flooded into the valley below Sinai, but the marched away from it in military formation, organized and with the Ark of the Covenant before them. The came as slaves and left as conquerors and as priests of the most High God, the only God whose Son was Jesus Christ and who, through Christ, by the Power of the Holy Spirit, created all things and reigns supreme as the King of the Universe.

My question is: “What happened?” What happened to Israel that they were so drastically changed? Put simply, “Leviticus happened to them.” You see, scholars have discovered that Leviticus was set forth as a manual for the sacrificial system and as a guide to the offerings and for ethical behavior. It served as Israel’s guide on how to worship God. The nation is taught, by God Himself, how to approach God.

Now see if you follow this logic, see if you can track with me here through what God has shown me. If it is true that God wishes to work in our lives and make us Holy, to sanctify us and transform us into a loving God centered people who follow Christ above all else; and if it is true that worshipping God intensifies the healing of our brokenness and our sinfulness; then it stands to reason that the book of Leviticus, which is the book worship…how to worship…for the Jews…is a call to holiness through worship. This makes “church” so much more important than we ever thought before. It makes worship important because it is through this time on Sunday mornings that many of you will come to encounter God, be faced with your sins, and even be healed of physical, mental, and emotional infirmities.

We must not let our culture demand from us how we are to worship God. We must not let our world enslave our Gospel and enslave how we spend time with God. Just because it is entertaining does not mean that it is Holy or right or appropriate. On the other hand, for those of you who are suspicious reverence and heart felt worship with good music…just because it happens to be entertaining, does not mean that it’s not holy.

God summons you to worship Him; he summons you to worship Him not for His good, as if he needed you to worship Him. He knows that following Him is going to be the best possible life that you can have…and since He loves you, he calls you to follow Him, not only in your day to day lives, but also in how you worship here and now. The problem the Israelites had was that their default position was to revert back to pagan worship, and to worship the Egyptian Gods that they had been worshipping in slavery. But God sought to release them, not to put them into bondage, and to teach them that coming to Him in moments of struggle and pain are what would free them. This is the purpose of true, genuine, authentic worship.

Be kind, don't dookie the toilet seat -an appalling story of the phantom crapper.

I feel the tenacious need to apologize for this blog ahead of time since I know it will offend someone; however, my goal is to simply enlighten certain people about my mindset and thinking and experiences in seminary beyond that of mere theological mumbo-jumbo. So if the title offends you, then please simply choose not to read the blog.
I woke up the night before last to the sound of my loathsome toilet -which happens to sound like a harrier jet lifting off- flushing in the middle of the night. This is not a tremendously scaring incident in my mind, toilets flush, and when you are in a dorm they flush at all hours of the day and night. So, whilst I was awake I felt it prudent to go pee instead of waking up to the sure feeling of having to pee a couple of hours later. So, I got out of my bed and stumbled into my bathroom.
Now, I say I stumbled because I did quite literally stumble because I can hardly walk in the middle of the night due to my still sprained ankle -an injury which has me clogging the drain in my shower and soaking my ankle is boiling hot water early in the mornings so that it loosens up enough to get my shoe on and walk on. Thinking, "It's too dark, and I'm too asleep to actually be sure that I would not pee all over the wall," I sat the toilet set down and peed sitting down (see this to understand the significance of my sitting down: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SDxcyqeRc-4 p.s. he does not reflect my theological state or any other state that I find myself residing in).
So, I went back to sleep, not angry for the flushed toilet nor having peed on the wall, but with a comfortably empty bladder. However, little did I know that my thoughts on "missing the toilet" were a dangerously ironic foreshadowing of things to come.
Early yesterday morning I arrroooooosseeee and milled about my room. I got some clothes on and worked my way to my bathroom -keeping in mind I had not had my token morning hot water soaking of me ankle- and took my token (yes I'm aware I used the word twice, bite me, I like it) morning poo. As I rounded the corner into the bathroom stall I found myself face to face with an atrocity of prodigiously mythological proportions: a turd perched on my toilet seat. No, I recant, a turd that I assume was at one time perched on my toilet seat but was by this time squished if not smeared on the toilet seat.
Now I'm not a terribly laid back person, but I'm not anal about cleanliness either. I don't mind it a couple of times if you don't flush -it happens- however, what I do not want is your hair near me or your bodily secretions in a PLACE THAT I SIT DOWN SO THAT IT CAN TOUCH MY BARE SKIN AND GIVE ME ANY NUMBER OF HORRIFYINGLY DANGEROUS AND STOMACH WRENCHING PATHOGENS. But perhaps something happened that caused such a crime in my bathroom -it was nothing I did, and I was terrified at the idea that I may have SAT IN DOOKIE. So I have compromised a list of excuses that one may have for crapping on a toilet (not to be confused with a list of excuses for not cleaning ones toilet up after crapping on it and not in it):
1. You've lost the ability to distinguish between your butt and a hole in the ground.
2. You have a colostomy bag that ruptured and leaked crap onto the seat.
3. You spontaneously grew a second butt hole on your forehead, as a repercussion of doing steroids and while examining your own poop and you inadvertently allowed your turtle head to get on the toilet.
4. You spontaneously grew a second or third butt hole, still as a repercussion of steroids, that faces forward and to the right so that when you pooped you hit the seat (this one I find highly unlikely because where did the rest of the dookie go? Was it just a fluke?)
5. You're stupid.
6. You have IBS, and potentially a second butt hole.
7. You were never potty trained.
8. You are from some third world country-which I must admit I would not look down upon at all. I've been there, I understand the change.
9. You some how confused the toilet seat with toilet paper.
10. And, well, I don't have a tenth excuse, but what I do wonder is why was it smushed?

So, back to the drama. I walked into my suit mate's room and said, "Bill (his name is not Bill, but we will say it is Bill for privacy's sake), did you take a crap recently?" To which Bill responded, "Yeah about twenty minutes ago. Why, did I not flush?" (Thank you God that I did not SIT IN it late at night.) To which I responded, "Yeah...no, it's all over the toilet seat."
Now Bill is not an intentionally unaware of his surroundings, but he was unaware enough to not realize that he pooped the seat -that's ok, I've done far more rejunkulous things. But what got me is that he stuck his hand down his pants, wiped his butt and and then looked at that hand and responded to me, "Well, it's not me, I'm clean."

......

I have to pause there because that made me throw up in my mouth. A little bit of me died when he did that. So now I end this blog because of time restraints, but I leave you with this.
Be kind, rewind...or crap on the toilet seat.

Marriage and my Greatest Sin to Date

I find You, my Love, very strange. Using a carelessly broad generalization, some lines of thinking would lead me to believe that You are a woman. You seem to show up in various forms, with little to no explanation as to why, you tend to express your desire for me to do specific things; but you don't always, if ever, tell me why I am or should do what you ask. It seems that I am only able to see why you asked me to do these things after I have or have not done as you asked. I guess you and I, our relationship, is a lot like a marriage in that regard. However, I have yet to really being to learn how and why you tick the way You do. Time with someone, seeing their likes and dislikes, desires, and interactions with others, it reveals how they work and why they work the way they do. You are my Husband, I am Your bride; but our situation is much more enigmatic than a marriage here on earth -we never dated. We were suddenly married -your Father arranged it.
Now I ust learn who you are, how and why you work the way you work. That will lead me to a place of not needing to ask "why." I will know You so well that my knowledge of You and experience with You will tell me "why."
This sheds an odd light on studying Your word, my King. For I would study your word inside and out to learn how to act and how not to sin; but that is not what you would have me do. I want to follow You, and I want to act how You would have me act; but following You is hard to do while so cripplingly blinded by a lack of explanation from You. But you have no desire for me to live my life here "blindly," do you? You have no desire for me to follow what some call your "instruction manual" -I hate that peppy seeker sensitive name for your sacred Word.
If it is that we are married, if it is that I am to learn more about You and how you tick then I need experience with You my Love; but I cannot simply sit and talk with You every night and expect to learn your ins and outs through simple conversation. I must experience life with You, I must live out real life situations with You. That comes with every moment of everyday, being observant of You and Your voice -in myself and in others as well. This then affects Your scripture and how I read it. Perhaps, well obviously, there are commands and rules for living in Your word; but more than that it is full of You, and experiences with You. It is a record, a testimony of how you have interacted with humanity in the past. It seemst hat it may serve as a sort of journal of key instances, key situations that allowt he reader to observe You, the King, and from this careful observation a person can learn how and why you work, think, act, feel, and desire as You do. And if a person, if I know why You are who then I can understand what motivates your will and desire. I can know why it is that You ask me to do what you ask me to do.
Something that breaks my heart as I ponder who You are is that You truly are my lover, the one truest Love that my heart will be committed to. You are a husband who takes joy in spontaneously giving to Your bride. You love to bless those You love. I, however, and saddened in light of this because I know these statements to be true in my mind, but I doubt them in my heart. I am selfishly ignorant to Your desire to bless me my Lord, and to give me gifts. This time wtih You alone, the feeling I have in Your presence is even a gift I do not count. I am so sorry that I do not acknowledge Your gifts as gifts at all or as being from You. Instead I expect these things and am angry when I do not receive them.

Forgive me Father, for I have discovered a far greater sin than lust, murder, envy, or even hate...I am so guilty of not acknowledging that You love me. The pain of giving love to someone only to have them fail to recognize that you love them and that your gifts are out of love is a pain humanity, nor the God that created it should ever have had to feel.

The Blind man and the Wedding


I think the greatest sin we can commit is to not spend time with God. Sure, murder hurts Him, lust hurts Him, killing His Son hurt him too -I definitely think there is a special place in hell for unrepentant child molesters and those involved in genocide; but I'm still convinced that God is more hurt by us knowing Him and still choosing to ignore Him. I think that we think that desiring God over everything else is something that will come after in "eternity." That may be true, to some extent; but that being said, it seems that eternity began long before time was plopped in the midst of it, and that it will go on long after time is removed from the midst of it.
Sometimes I wish I had been born blind, but I think that makes me masochistic. Sometimes I feel that Christianity manifests itself in a mild form of masochism -there may be something to that thought, but that's irrelevant to what I'm stewing on at the moment. Sometimes I think we should have all been born blind until we turned twenty-three. Beyond it giving the twenty-third birthday a meaning besides it being the first birthday you have since you are sixteen that means absolutely nothing, it may would serve us in helping us to appreciate the world and it's colors better. In the same way, I envy the blind man in the story of Christ healing the blind man. An entire life spent in darkness, seeing no colors, hearing only sounds, being unable to put faces with voices or pictures with smells or even knowing what it meant to see a blue sky -how horribly unfair. Yet, something inside of me believes that his life was more blessed than nearly every other life to have been lived or to be lived. The first thing the man saw was the face of God. Save Adam, he may be the only person in history to have claim to such a blessing.
How different things would have been for the blind man, let's call him Pete. How different Pete's life must have been seeing the face of the Son of God, the face of God, first. The first thing Pete saw was the incarnation of Love and perfection. That had to have had profound effects upon Pete's view of the world and life. What if we were all like this? What if instead of war, death, famine, fear, hate, anger, divorce, disease, suffering, and sin we saw the face of God first?
This paints an incredible picture for me when I think about the dead rising up and awakening. After your eyes open the first thing you'll see is Christ, maybe...maybe not. At last those of us blessed with the burden of living out Christ's life without ever having seen His eyes will finally get to look in them...I bet they are beautiful eyes.
One of the most profoundly missed metaphors in scripture is not a metaphor at all I do not believe. Hosea, in my mind, shows this metaphor better than any other book in the Bible. God, reeling from being betrayed by His lovers -Israel- makes a statement that puts me into tears.

"Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor [trouble] a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. 'In that day,' declares the Lord 'you will call me "my husband"; you will no longer call me "my master...I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord. In that day I will respond," declares the lord - "I will respond to the skies and they will respond to the earth; and the earth will respond to the grain, and the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people;' and they will say, 'You are my God.' "

I think this is literal. I am convinced it is not some shaky metaphor that will break down. I believe raising from the dead, entering heaven will be the marriage ceremony on a Divine level. It will be just as it is for a wife who has just had the sanctuary doors flung open. For me there will be family and friends who will be there in the great sanctuary. They will no longer be eaten alive and weakened by cancer, or crippled by handicaps that left them in wheel chairs. They won't be bodies mangled by car crashes, gun shots, suicides, or age -they, all of them, will be perfect. My grandmother will know my face, my cousin will no longer be an adult mind stuck in a crippled dysfunctional body, my grandfather will be able to see me clearly and would be able, if he wanted, to get up and pick me up in jubilation. But none of that matters, none of that will matter. I won't be walking down that isle for anyone of them. I didn't get all dressed up for them, I didn't clean myself up for them. I won't be walking down that isle for anyone in that sanctuary...save one. Imagine that moment, what it will be. Music, triumphant music, playing in the background. Joy would be so thick in the air you could cut it with a knife. And then our eyes will meet, both of us...especially me...will know this is the moment I've been waiting for all my life. The moment that my faith has lead me to. The moment I can touch Him, the moment I can hug Him, when I'll know beyond the shadow of a doubt that He exists because I have tangible physical evidence first hand that He exists...that moment has arrived. What else could possibly matter.
Suffice it to say, I seem to be looking forward to death more and more every time I talk to God. Something about that disturbs...something about that excites me -more proof that I might be mildly masochistic? However, what is the disconcerting is that this saddens me, this image. It makes the gap between Him and I more and more vivid. Paul voiced this very conundrum when he said, "For me...to die is to gain [everything,] but to live is Christ."

Preface to this Blog

I am continually amazed when God reveals something more about Himself. I once heard a rather ironic definition of the word "genius" once. The person defined it as the ability to scrutinize the obvious, and when I think of how God has spoken to me in the past month I can think of Him as nothing less than a genius. I've blogged quite a bit in the past, but I stopped because it became a source of arrogance and pride in my mind -not sure how but it did, figure that out and you can have a nickel. The past month and a half of my life have been absurdly intense, whether it be because I haven't slept or because God has spoken to me in ways that I could not have ever imagined and said things to me that I am confident are the most profound things He has ever said to me. So, on the advice from a friend I am going to record such an intense time down in a public setting so that perhaps it allows me to get them out of my head (helping me sleep) and maybe even helps someone else make sense of the insanely intense genius that God seems to be.